Tuesday Update

Compared to last week, today was downright boring. I shouldn't say that, because there is no such thing as a boring day at Red Wolf Sanctuary. What I should say was that there was no unexpected dead animal awaiting butchery. That sounds better (/sarcasm). Anyways, the morning started off with lots and lots of rain. This rain made the drive to Red Wolf somewhat challenging. First there was the general deluge obscuring my vision, and then there was the semi that squished a car and ran into a car wash. Luckily, my friend and I arrived unscathed at Red Wolf.

For once, it was a relief to do the bears because it meant that we were able to stay out of the rain. Not much to report on - there was poop, we scooped it. There were stains, so we scrubbed, bleached, and rinsed. We did the hustle (it's a Paul Strasser thing - no day is complete without doing the hustle). After bears, it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we had Rosie time. I did forget my camera, so I don't have any adorable photos to offer. But I can assure you that she was quite cuddly today, and even let me pet her for longer than five seconds. We're hoping to start building a new fox enclosure soon, so that Rosie can live outside like a real fox! Plus, once she moves outside, the bathroom will no longer be occupied by a rambunctious fox kit that likes to play while you are trying to make use of the facilities.

By the time we were finished playing with Rosie, the rain had cleared up. This means that is was a good time to feed all of the animals. So the meat-mobile emerged, laden with a whole bunch of deer haunches, various cuts of beef (donated from a freezer, not from last week's efforts), and a deer abdomen. It did not smell very nice. We were able to go into one of the wolf enclosures and watch a wolf eat. He cracked bones like it was no big deal. Luckily, he was much more interested in his beef than in us.

When we finally finished distributing the goodies, it was time to release the injured Red Tailed Hawk into a larger enclosure. We're not sure if he'll be a releasable bird, but for now he'll be spending time in the raptor center. The hawk was surprising cooperative, settling down fairly nicely once Paul got him out of the temporary box. We then put him (the hawk, not Paul) into a cat carrier and took him up to the raptor center. Now he's got a nice outdoor enclosure in which he can recover.

Paul removing hawk from temporary holding unit

Paul with resigned hawk

After relocating Mr. Hawk, Paul took us (us being the 3 other volunteers and myself) the extent of his property. It is so much larger than I imagined, and so beautiful! Paul has so many incredible ideas for this place, such as adding herds of elk and bison, adding birding stations (today we saw a scarlet tanager), and adding an education center. It has so much potential, but not so much money...

Rough approximation of Paul's property

 After the grand tour, it was time to go home. So, I guess that's it until next Tuesday!

Taylor

Just your average Tuesday

So I pull into Red Wolf Sanctuary at 10:00 AM this morning, right on time. I recruited two friends to come out with me, warning them about the vast amounts of poo they would have to endure and assuring them that Rosie made it all worth it. Everything was going well. Justin, a long-time volunteer (who is also the youngest person present), is there as well as another volunteer. Paul is absent. I stroll up to Justin and ask where Paul might be.
"Oh, he called and said he's picking up a cow for us." Says he.
"Oh, okay." Says I, not really paying attention to what he said. Then my brain catches up to my ears. "Wait, what?!!"

So. A cow was donated to RWS by a farmer. It died of unknown causes. It was a completely intact pregnant cow, and it needed to be butchered. So that was the task of this morning. It was very different from slaughter days at the Dell Cheetah Centre. At the Dell, the animals were slaughtered and skinned and quartered before we saw them - we dealt mainly with the cutting up hunks of meat that were already separated from the animal-looking structure. At Red Wolf Sanctuary, us volunteers were involved every step of the way. From hooking up the cow to the hydraulics to skinning it to cutting off its head to emptying its abdominal cavity, we were there. Paul gave us lessons in anatomy and beef cuts as he guided us through the whole process. You might think that, as a vegetarian, I would be very upset by this process. The truth is, it was more interesting than disgusting or depressing. It is sad that this cow died and its calf died with it, but wolves need to eat and all they eat is meat. To quote the wise Mufasa, "We're all connected in the circle of life". So I learned a lot about cow anatomy, organizing freezers, knives, and power saws.

That took up most of the morning. Then we ate lunch (we were hungry despite the vast quantities of raw meat we had just handled), played with Rosie, cleaned the bears' enclosures, did a water run, fed the raptors, and that's just about it. I'm happy to say that even the chore of butchering a cow has not dampened my enthusiasm for this wonderful place. I can't wait to go back out on Tuesday.

Rosie says: "Do I detect a hint of cow?"

Sh*t Happens

Tuesday is Red Wolf Sanctuary Volunteering day. So I wake up expecting a certain amount of poo in my day. You know - bear poo, lynx poo, puma poo, the usual. What I don't expect is this:

Above is a very guilty puppy with very explosive diarrhea. This is not what you want to see at 6 AM in the morning when you have to get out to a wildlife sanctuary located more than an hour away from your house. This probably is not what you wanted to read about, either, and I apologize. I will make up for it with cute fox kit photos in just a little bit. But first I have to finish telling you all about poo.
So, once I took care of the poo disaster at home, it was time to head out to RWS. The morning started out with some quality Rosie time. Observe:

Is she not adorable? Does she not make up for the sh*t I had to deal with in the morning? Yes and yes!

Sadly, after Rosie time, it was time for more poo. Bear poo, to be more exact. We spend nearly three hours in the bear house shoveling poo, scrubbing poo, clearing poo out of drains, and refilling water tubs. After that nice hygienic task, we ate some lunch. It's funny to think on how I used to be a germaphobe.

After lunch it was time to tackle the cat enclosures. Yes, poo again, but not nearly as bad as the bears'. There was quite a bit of scrubbing to be done, however, and we spent a pretty long time sweeping and cleaning areas that hadn't been cleaned in a while. The extra-good cleaning trend is due to the fact that there is a big group coming in from the Cleveland Zoo on Friday to take a look at the sanctuary, and we want everything to look as wonderful as possible. The less poo around, the better.

There was still a lot to be done after all of this work (as there always is), but we had pretty much exhausted ourselves and it was time to go home anyways. But I'll be back again on Thursday to do more tidying up before that tour group comes in.

If you have any interest in helping out at Red Wolf, whether it be through donations of money, time, or supplies, feel free to contact me at tajarooski@gmail.com. I don't like to badger for money, but poor Rosie could really use a real outdoor enclosure.

Have a wonderful evening!

Rosie goes Warhol

Time for Some Smiles

The last couple of posts have been pretty heavy and not very cheery. So today I decided that it is time for some smiles, and how could you not smile at this face?

Meet Rosie, a very young fox who lives at Red Wolf Sanctuary. Paul Strasser, who owns and runs Red Wolf Sanctuary, has hand-raised Rosie since she was just a few days old. Since I am now a volunteer at this sanctuary, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to play with this little girl for about an hour this morning. She is certainly much more active than the cheetah cubs! I don't think she really sat still, ever, except for about five minutes when she cuddled in my lap (!!!).  Paul said I must be a fox-whisperer because he's never seen her willingly cuddle and stay still longer than 5 seconds. Lucky me! She has super sharp teeth and she likes to pounce and run and jump and stick her nose into things she shouldn't stick her nose into. Such an awesome start to the morning!

After playtime with Rosie, we (Paul, two other volunteers, and I) went to the bear house to do some serious cleaning. Bear poop ranks up there with some of the smelliest poo I've handled. It was pretty rank. Usually it's just Paul taking care of all the bears, coyotes, foxes, wolves, big cats and raptors, so things can get pretty messy. That's when us volunteers come into play - as pooper scoopers! So we spent most of the morning shoveling poo into wheelbarrows and Cloroxing that shit up. Literally. I even had to pick up bear poo. That's just how dedicated I am.
After a brief lunchbreak, we went to clean the big cats' enclosure. At the moment, Red Wolf Sanctuary is home to Boze the lynx and Yuma the Puma. The weather is starting to get hot, which means bad things for the meat left over from the cats' meals. In other words, there were lots of maggots involved. But it was super satisfying to give the enclosures a good scrub-down. After the cats, we fed horses and cleaned the water for the raptors. The raptors include a red-tailed hawk, a barred owl, a great-horned owl, and a few vultures. After that, we called it a day. I got my wild animal fix for the week! Yay!

In Memory of Tippi

Tippi passed away today at just over 10 months of age, due to a spinal fracture. She will be missed by all who were lucky enough to know her. 

Nach(eetah)o Time?

I made it back to Cincinnati after about 21 hours of travelling. Not much exciting to write about in the whole travel arena...I didn't sleep that much, thus the reason why I didn't post last night. I was not very coherent due to jet lag. While on said jet for the 16-hour stretch from Johannesburg to Atlanta, I ended up watching four movies - Slumdog Millionaire, Ides of March (set here in Cincinnati!), Hugo, and Chronicle. That's a lot of movies. I've already seen Slumdog, but not recently and I like that film quite a bit. Ides of March was very well done, but did not restore my faith in politicians. In fact, it made me even more wary of the upcoming elections in real life. Hugo was fun to watch, and much better than I thought it would be. Chronicle was...weird. I'd never heard of it before. Basically, it involves three teens who obtain telekinetic powers from a mysterious rock in a cave. One of said teenagers is mentally unstable, with an alcoholic dad and a dying mom...you can guess where the film's going. [SPOILER] It ends up with 2 dead telekinetic teens and another world-traveling and weary telekinetic teen. For the purposes of entertainment on a really long plane ride, it did a good enough job. But I digress. Back to cheetahs, even though I don't have access to them anymore.
I don't have any updated news on Tippy. When I left on Sunday, she had been to the vet and was diagnosed with a broken T3 vertebrae, which is definitely not a good thing. Estelle and Pieter are keeping her comfortable and hoping for the best. The best would be her spine healing itself. I don't know how likely this is, considering how hard it must be to keep a frightened and stressed cheetah cub on bed rest. But I'm rooting for you, Tippy!
I am going through severe cheetah withdrawal. This afternoon I went down to the basement and had Nacho time. For those of you who don't know me very well, Nacho refers to my cat, not to the food. We adopted Nacho as a kitten, and he came with the name. His full name is Nacho-san, because he used to be a crazy ninja cat who thought hands were meant for playing with, not for petting. In the last year or so, however, he has turned into a giant cuddle bug. Today he exfoliated my arms, just like Nala used to do! The only difference is that his tongue is a lot smaller and it hurt a lot less. He's never done that before, so I like to think he is picking up vibes from the cheetahs over in Africa.
The time at the Dell has really helped me to sort out what I want to study and pursue. The day I got home from Africa, I received an acceptance letter into the university I really wanted to attend. I go in with the intent of studying biology and art together. They are not as mismatched as they may seem - this way I can take really good photos while I am out in the field studying cheetahs or wolves or servals or what have you! Also, studying anatomy is very good for the artist as well as the biologist. A win-win study situation, if you ask me. Because I miss working at the Dell so much, this summer I am volunteering at Red Wolf Sanctuary, which is a bit closer to home (only an hour away, in Indiana!). So I will keep writing, but not as regularly.
I am going through my 4700+ photos right now, and photoshopping some of them because I am making a photo book on Snapfish. It is taking a bit of time, and my brain is starting to fry. Luckily, I don't think it's possible to get tired of looking at photos of cheetahs and Africa. So back to that task I go!

Taylor